i am a butterfly…

Posts Tagged ‘baking’

And also for make ahead.

Chocolate chip cookies, scooped out onto a parchment covered sheet pan and ready for the freezer. When they’re frozen, I just toss them all into a zipper bag and keep them frozen. A very easy method for keeping cookie dough around, and I’m not faced with dozens of baked cookies all at once.

I didn’t learn how to bake bread until college. My college was a small, very crunchy school in Bar Harbor, ME and instead of a caffeteria, which would have been entirely out of place considering the culture of the place, we had a room in the main building, overlooking Frenchman’s Bay, called Take A Break. (As an aside, TAB worked on the honor system: food was put out with little signs with the prices, but no one manned the table collecting money. It was expected that everyone could be trusted to put the correct amount of money in the till and not to take any out except the change you were owed. This system actually worked very well, and I don’t recall there ever being a time when I was there that the TAB till came up short. In fact, it often came out over.) Being the hippie, crunchy, granola school that it was, the food served at TAB was all natural, never processed, and freshly prepared. The bread for the sandwiches was whole grain and baked daily in the fabulous TAB kitchen by a student as part of the student employment program. For a couple of years while I was there, the student in charge of the bread-baking was my boyfriend, Paul.

Bread for sandwiches had to be done the night before, so Paul would usually go into the kitchen around midnight to start working on whatever bread he’d chosen for that batch. I often accompanied him to keep him company and nibble on little bits of bread dough when I could snag them.* During rising periods, we both usually worked on something for class or we’d write or we would just sit and chat in the warm kitchen. I have really fond memories of those nights we spent together and even though Paul went on to break my heart multiple times, I can still think about him with kindness when I think about nights spent baking bread and a few other things.**

That was when I learned how to knead bread dough. Paul would usually make one more loaf than TAB needed, and we would share it, hot out of the oven. It was on those small, extra loaves that he taught me how to knead. It wasn’t all melodramtic and ridiculous like that scene with the clay in Ghost. Kneading bread dough is hard work – as is throwing pottery, which makes that scene even more stupid – and while it’s earthy and spiritual and homey and lovely, it’s definitely not sexy. But I loved it and I started making my own bread and after I was out of college, I kept it up for a few years.

And then somewhere along the way, after not baking any bread for a few months or a year or however long it was, I got the idea that it was just too much work. Somehow, I got the idea that the only way I would ever have fresh-baked bread in the house was if I had a bread machine. So I bought one and I loved it for a long, long time.

It wasn’t until earlier this year that something switched inside me and I got the yen to bake bread by hand again. From the first batch, I was hooked. My hands took up the motions of kneading so easily, remembered motion, like riding a bicycle. It was calming, and contemplative, something my hands did without the need for my brain to engage, freeing it to wander and think and ponder. A moving meditation. How was it that I ever stopped doing this and declared it too much work?

I am so glad to have rediscovered this, and if I ever again say it’s too much work, someone should just kick me.

The two photos in this post are of my variation on Susan’s Farmhouse White. My changes from her recipe are to use milk instead of water, butter instead of canola oil, and white whole wheat instead of the all purpose flour. The batch picture here also has KAF’s Harvest Grains Blend, which turns a good loaf of bread into an epic*** loaf of bread. The batch here used about 3T of the grains per cup of flour.

* I still love raw bread dough and will occasionally pop a small piece into my mouth while kneading these days. I’m also crazy for raw biscuit dough.

*** Epic. Ha.

The scone recipe in The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book has been my favorite since I first got my copy of it nearly 20 years ago. (Holy crap I feel old.) These days, however, I can’t futz around with things like whole wheat pastry flour. I already have too many kinds of flour in the house for bread baking. I’m not about to add another. So when I recently dusted off my very old copy of the book, I decided to substitute white whole wheat for the whole wheat pastry flour. The results weren’t as good as they were back when I used to use pastry flour, but they were still delicious and pretty. So this is my version, using white whole wheat and blueberries.

2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 t baking soda
1 ½ t baking soda
½ t salt
2 T brown sugar

2 T cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 cup plus 2 T buttermilk at room temperature (1 cup may actually be enough)
½ cup dried blueberries

Preheat oven to 375°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix first 5 ingredients together. You can sift, but I’m lazy and just whisk them together till they’re well blended. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles oatmeal flakes. Stir in the buttermilk and blueberries, gently and quickly, until barely blended together.  Turn out onto the parchment-lined baking sheet and pat into a ¾-inch thick circle, 8 or 9 inches across. Cut the circle into 4 or 6 wedges and bake immediately for 20 minutes.

Because I like a little crunch on top, I sprinkled granulated sugar over the top of the circle before baking. The sugar melted and made a nice crust over the top. Very yum.

My knitting has been nearly non-existent lately. This weather – even thought it hasn’t been super hot, for which I am deeply grateful – isn’t conducive to having a pile of wool on my lap. (Although, my current large project is in an acrylic/wool blend. Shhh. Don’t tell. And don’t judge me. It’s a heavy, bulky sweater and the acrylic will take away some of the weight in the finished product.) Add to that the fact that my favorite two circulars have gone missing along with the ball of Zitron Trekking I planned to use for my next pair of socks, and the knitting mojo is definitely in a waning period. Once I find those needles and cast on for those socks, I expect it to start waxing again.

What I have been doing, however, is cooking. A lot of cooking. And using a lot of fruit for desserts. I love summer fruits, and I think cobblers and crumbles are a great way to showcase them.

This recipe is from the July 2009 issue of Cooking Light magazine. The original recipe called for it to be topped with sugared sliced almonds, but that seemed to fiddly to me. And I didn’t have any sliced almonds. But still, even if I had, it would have seemed fiddly.

Ingredients
filling:
3 (6-ounce) packages fresh blueberries – I actually only used 1 package
3 (5.6-ounce) packages fresh blackberries – again, only 1 package
3 medium peaches, peeled and sliced – I used 4 peaches
Cooking spray
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt

topping:
4.5 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 cup) – since I started baking bread, I always weigh my flour and recommend it
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup half-and-half

Preheat oven to 350°.

Spray a 13×9-inch baking disk lightly with cooking spray. Add the fruit. Sprinkle the fruit with the remaining filling ingredients and gently toss to combine.

Combine the first 5 topping ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the half-and-half and knead dough until just moistened. This was messy.

Drop the dough evenly by spoonfuls over the top of the filling. Bake at 350° for 50 minutes until top is evenly browned. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Cooking Light recommends serving this with vanilla ice cream, which would be lovely. We just ate it drizzled with a little heavy cream, though, and it was delicious.

I made this the other night using stale banana nut bread, and it was divine. The only thing I’ll do differently next time is to cut down on the sugar if using a sweet bread.

• 2 cups milk
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups bread, torn into chunks
• 1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350.

Heat the milk to scalding. I just measured the milk into a Pyrex measuring cup and nuked it. Much easier than dirtying a pan to scald milk. Add the butter and stir it in so it melts. Cool to lukewarm.

Whisk together the eggs, cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar. Slowly whisk in the milk and butter mixture.

Grease a 9×9 baking pan – it would have fit fine in a 9×11, instead – and add the bread. Sprinkle the cherries over the bread, then slowly pour the custard mix over everything.

Bake for 45-50 minutes. Serve warm. Or cold. It’s fantastic cold.

That’s what I’m feeling right now. Why? Because of this:

I decided yesterday that I wanted to start baking all of our sandwich bread instead of buying it. While I have a bread machine, I don’t really like the shapes of the loaves it makes, and I hate the little hole the paddle leaves, so I decided that it would need to be baked by hand. It’s been years since I baked bread without a machine, but it turns out that it’s surprisingly like riding a bike.

White bread is always easier than whole wheat, so I decided to start with Susan’s Farmhouse White Sandwich Bread.

I followed that recipe almost exactly, except that I used melted butter instead of canola. Also, I ended up only making 2 loaves, rather than the 3 in the recipe, because I held out 10 ounces of dough to use as “old dough” in another recipe later on.

Even with 10 ounces taken out, it was too much dough for only 2 loaves, so they got pretty large! As a result, I think I could have baked them longer. I did add an extra 5 minutes, but they’re probably a smidge underbaked. Still, I bet they’ll taste wonderful.

Which I’m going to find out right now, when I go have a slice.

I’m going to be testing a few cupcake recipes over the next couple of weeks. This is the first batch: Banana Cupcakes with Honey-Cinnamon Frosting from Everyday Food.

Overall, they were a big hit. The cake part tastes like banana bread, which is one of my favorite things in the whole world. The only problem with that was that I felt like they lacked for not having walnuts. I could put them in, but are walnuts in a cupcake weird?

The buttercream icing was okay, but there was something weird about it. It may have been that my powdered sugar is a little on the old side, which may have given the icing an “off” flavor.

I’m not sure what recipe will be next, but I’m on the lookout for something like a brownie cupcake.

I still don’t have the comment email notification thing figured out, so I’m taking a break to share a recipe. I made these cookies a few days ago to send to my secret Santa recipient along with the scarf I knit for her. They’re super easy to make and so delicious, and they have the added bonus of looking very impressive. I made two batches: one with chopped walnuts and triple berry jam, and another with coconut and strawberry jam.

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg, separated
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup flaked sweetened coconut or
1/2 – 3/4 cup hazelnuts, almonds, pecans or walnuts, toasted and finely chopped
1/2 cup jam

Preheat oven to 350 and place rack in center of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat, which is what I used.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Add the flour mixture to the batter and beat just until combined. If the batter is too soft to roll into balls, refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg white until frothy. Place the coconut on a plate. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls. Taking one ball of dough at a time, dip first into the egg white and then lightly roll into the coconut. Place on the prepared baking sheet spacing about 1 inch apart. Using your thumb or end of a wooden spoon, make a indentation into the center of each cookie and fill with about 1/4 teaspoon of jam.

Bake for about 13-15 minutes, or until cookies are set and the coconut has nicely browned. Remove from oven and place on wire rack to cool.

Makes about 20 cookies.